death penalty news
Feb 24, 2005
OHIO --- impending execution:
USA (Ohio): William Henry Smith (m), aged 47, black
William Smith is scheduled to be executed in Ohio on 8 March 2005. He was
sentenced to death in April 1988 for the rape, robbery and murder of a
47-year-old woman, Mary Bradford, in her home in Cincinnati in September
1987. He has been on death row for almost 17 years.
There is evidence that William Smith, who grew up in an environment of
deprivation and abuse, suffers from a personality disorder and organic
brain damage. His mother suffered from mental illness, as did his
stepfather, who was also violent towards the children. From the age of nine
to 14, William Smith himself was resident in a psychiatric facility where
he was treated with anti-psychotic medication and electric shock therapy.
After he left there as a young teenager, he took to living on the streets
or with friends. He began using drugs, and would later be diagnosed with
alcohol dependence, cannabis dependence and cocaine dependence which, in a
post-conviction assessment, a clinical psychologist has concluded may have
affected Smith's conduct on the night of the crime.
William Smith initially entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity,
but later withdrew it when mental health evaluations did not support such a
plea. For such a plea to be successful, the defendant has to prove not only
a mental disease or defect, but that the latter rendered him or her unable
to appreciate the wrongfulness of their conduct. The trial began on 4 April
1988 and he was convicted on 6 April 1988. The sentencing phase began on 11
April 1988. His lawyers failed to prepare for this phase until after the
conviction stage had ended.
The trial lawyers presented as central to their effort to save their client
from the death penalty Dr Nancy Schmidtgoessling, a clinical psychologist
who was one of the court-appointed experts who had evaluated William
Smith's mental state at the time of the crime after he had indicated he
would offer an insanity plea. Her role had been as a neutral expert rather
than as an advocate for the defendant. To act as mental health mitigation
expert for the defence is a different question, and requires broader
consideration of the defendant's mental health problems and background,
beyond the narrow question of legal sanity, for presentation to the
sentencing court. According to William Smith's clemency lawyers, however,
the trial attorneys never met with Dr Schmidtgoessling to discuss her
testimony and prepare her for her testimony. Instead, she was left to draw
upon the report she had completed on the insanity question. She herself has
now admitted that it was unreasonable to rely on her as the centre of the
mitigation effort. In addition, the prosecutor had reportedly argued that
the mental health mitigation should be discounted because it did not rise
to the level necessary to support an insanity defence.
When the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld William Smith's
death sentence in 2003, one of the three judges dissented, arguing that
under a 1985 US Supreme Court decision (Ake v. Oklahoma), William Smith
should have been provided with a mental health expert to investigate and
present mitigation evidence at his sentencing. The judge wrote: "Smith
endured an exceedingly difficult childhood. He spent time living with
abusive foster parents, was diagnosed with diffuse cerebral dysfunction,
and spent time in a juvenile psychiatric facility where, among other
things, he received electric shock therapy. Given this history, the lack of
expert assistance to which Smith was entitled under Ake had such a
substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the sentencing
decision, that I have grave doubt about the harmlessness of the error."
On 15 February 2005, the Ohio parole board announced that it had voted 8-0
against recommending that Governor Bob Taft either issue a reprieve from
execution or commute the death sentence of William Smith. The board had
found that there were a number of mitigating factors in the case, namely
that William Smith suffered "an abysmal childhood of deprivation and
abuse"; that he had displayed a "sincere, genuine and strong expression of
remorse" for the crime (in a meeting with a parole board member, William
Smith had "tearfully stated that he takes full responsibility for his
inexcusable, unjustifiable and inexplicable behaviour"); that, at the time
of the crime, he had "suffered from a personality disorder that may have
manifested in a loss of impulse control"; and that he has "demonstrated
exemplary conduct and adjustment" in prison. Nevertheless, the board
decided that the seriousness of the crime outweighed these mitigating
circumstances. The Board's recommendation is not binding on the Governor.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, regardless of
question of guilt or innocence, the seriousness of the crime, or the method
the state chooses to kill the condemned prisoner. This is a punishment that
is an affront to human dignity and a part of a culture of violence rather
than a solution to it. It has not be shown to have a unique deterrent
effect, denies the possibility of rehabilitation and reconciliation,
carries the risk of irreversible error as well as inconsistent and
discriminatory application, and consumes resources that could be used to
fight violent crime and assist those affected by it.
Today, 118 countries are abolitionist in law or practice. In this context,
the USA's claims to be a progressive force for human rights ring hollow. It
has carried out 949 executions since 1977. Ohio accounts for 15 of these
executions.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible,
in English or your own language, in your own words:
* expressing sympathy for the family and friends of Mary Bradford,
explaining that you are not seeking to excuse the manner of her death or to
minimize the suffering caused;
* opposing the execution of William Smith;
* noting the mitigating factors in this case, the apparently minimal
preparation by the trial lawyers for the sentencing phase, and the
dissenting opinion in the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit;
* expressing regret at the parole board's decision not to recommend
clemency;
* urging the governor to commute this death sentence, and to begin to
lead the State of Ohio away from the death penalty.
APPEALS TO:
Governor Bob Taft
30th Floor
77 South High Street
Columbus, Ohio 43215-6117, USA
Email: ( via website) http://governor.ohio.gov/contactinfopage.asp
([email protected])
Fax: 001 614 466 9354
Salutation: Dear Governor
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From [email protected] Thu Feb 24 13:57:15 2005
From: [email protected] (Joerg Sommer)
Date: Tue Aug 16 12:15:29 2005
Subject: [Deathpenalty]death penalty news --- NEW YORK
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
death penalty news
Feb 24, 2005
NEW YORK:
Who Got The Death Penalty
New York State's death penalty law was in effect just short of nine years
before the Court of Appeals struck it down for its "coercive jury
instruction" last June.
While Governor George Pataki says he wants the death penalty restored, it
is not clear that the death penalty will be made legal once again in New
York. Opponents of capital punishment make many arguments - that it does
not deter crime, that it is immoral for the government to kill people, even
that it is expensive: before it was rule unconstitutional, only .11 percent
of those arrested for murder faced the death penalty, and yet the costs of
administration were in excess of $250 million per year. But the most
passionate argument is probably the uneven way in which the death penalty
is applied.
In New York State, those people who committed murders outside New York
City, and those killing white victims, were much more likely to have been
sentenced to death.
How Many Arrested, How Many Sentenced
Since 1995, when the death penalty was restored in New York, 6,545 arrests
have been made for murder, according to statistics compiled by the Capital
Defender Office.
Of these, 500 resulted in first-degree murder indictments.
Of these 500, 58 resulted in a "death notice" being filed - a notification
by the prosecution that it may seek the death penalty.
Of these 58: 9 cases are still pending, 27 resulted in life without parole
from a plea bargain; one defendant committed suicide in jail; one death
notice was withdrawn, five were given very long sentences; and 15 so far
have been given trials.
Of the 15 who have been given trials, One's sentence is still pending; one
was acquitted; one was sentenced to 115 years to life; five were sentenced
to life without parole
And seven defendants were sentenced to death.
All seven are still alive.
Where You Kill Makes A Difference
The chance of a first degree murder indictment turning into a death notice
varies depending on where one is accused of doing the crime. Only six
percent of the murder one indictments in New York City resulted in a death
notice, compared to 23.1 percent upstate.
[Table included in original version - go to
http://gothamgazette.com/article/demographics/20050224/5/1332 to view it]
The chance of being convicted and sentenced to death is much greater in the
New York suburbs than elsewhere. (Given the few death sentences one should
be cautious about drawing inferences about patterns, since the three death
sentences in the suburbs all come from Suffolk and from three quite
sensational cases. However, the use of a death notices certainly enhances
the prosecution's chances of getting a long sentence from a plea bargain).
Race of Defendant, Race of Victim
Those accused of killing a white victim are more than twice as likely to
receive a death notice than are those accused of killing only a non-white
victim. Similarly they are twice as likely to go to trial and over five
times as likely to receive the death sentence. These figures are
statistically significant according to an analysis by David Baldus, an
expert on the application of the death penalty.
[Table included in original version - go to
http://gothamgazette.com/article/demographics/20050224/5/1332 to view it]
Because of the disparity in the application of the death sentence upstate
versus downstate, and given the demography upstate versus downstate, blacks
accused of murder are much less likely to receive the death sentence.
(source: Gotham Gazette; Andrew A. Beveridge has taught sociology at Queens
College since 1981, done demographic analyses for the New York Times since
1993, and provides expert testimony on a range of cases, including housing
discrimination. The opinions expressed are his alone.)
